Wanderings – Page 58 – The Life and Times of Joe Suttle

Fires Rage On

joe June 27, 2008 General

Seems that CalFire (California Department of ?something?) is working as hard as they can, but the fires burn on. Mostly, it’s a case of more fires than firefighters. Right now, they say that there are over 1000 fires burning – some in totally inaccessible places. Fires started by some of the hundreds of lightning strikes last week.

With more thunderstorms predicted in the next couple of days, look for more fires.

With the fires, comes smoke and soot. From our house, walking outside gets us a good smell of the fires – wherever they might be raging. Haven’t checked the cars or other outside stuff for soot remnants, but in some communities, there’s lots of it.

Maybe what “we the people” need is a lightning strike in our lives to get a fire burning about doing the right things in life. Whether it’s in dealings with our spouse, co-workers, employeer or our customers – there are ways of doing things that “help”, and ways that “hurt”. When we do the “right” thing it usually helps or builds up the relationship.

I know, doing the “right” thing is not easy. In fact, just by human nature, doing the wrong or hurtful thing is a lot easier. Saying kind or helpful words is hard – “they” might not be kind or helpful back so “why should I waste my breath?” On top of that, it’s sure a lot easier to see their mistakes and let them know they did the wrong thing, or did it the wrong way.

Pray for a lightning-like strike – it’ll make you burn with desire to “do good.”

Try Being Blind

joe June 26, 2008 Faith

This is just my way of inviting you to see the difference between walking in the “light” as opposed to walking in the “dark”.

When I was younger, and heard of famous blind people like Helen Keller, my mind tried to grasp what it would be like to walk through a house that some one “re-arranged” (the worst thing you could do for a blind person). There are some vague memories about a movie about a blind person. I would close my eyes and try to walk through our house in San Francisco, and hope that no one had moved anything.

Often, the strikes in the shin, or some little thing left on the floor became painful reminders that if I was really blind, someone did not care about how it changed my life. On the other hand, it was a painful reminder to me that I could have the same negative impact on other people’s lives – just rearrange it to suit me without telling or talking to anyone else. Notice the me?

More recently (see my blog on being in a cave), walking in the dark has become an exercise to “try and see” as much as possible while wandering around the house. It keeps me from waking some kid who might be asleep on the living room floor. But, sometimes we need the light. We can stumble around and hurt ourselves or others, but we miss the ease with which we could get something done with the lights on. (no jokes about “the lights are on…”)

What has me at this point again is 1 John 2 verse 11 where he says we “walk in darkness and don’t know where we are going because the darkness has blinded us”. Helps me remember to carry a little “light” with me so I can see where I’m going.

Watch out for the broken glass on the floor…

Dancin’ Feet

joe June 25, 2008 General

Can’t remember if that was the name of a Penguin or Fred Astaire movie, but nonetheless, that’s what this is about. Can’t remember how many years I have passed or heard about that dance studio called “Sherrie’s”. Can’t even remember if before getting involved in home schooling that I even knew anyone who was taking lessons.

Besides, there weren’t any little girls in my household, so who would have known.

We got invited to the annual “Show” put on by Sherrie’s. Several adults in our homeschool group were involved as students or moms, and so “we were going”. I knew the moms were taking tap dance lessons, so most thoughts of dancers in tutus were pushed to the back of my mind – but still…

Was I ever blown away by a multitude of things that had never occurred to me. For openers, there were a lot of women (read over 21) taking all kinds of dance lessons – tap, Hawaiian, Flamenco to name a few. Then there were the gazillion (couldn’t count) girls and boys of all ages who were taking dance lessons. No ballet here!

What an awesome production, with show number after show number. This was a real show, that went off like clockwork. Little kids – big kids – adults, all doing their parts. Even amazed that so many dancers could remember their steps in so many different numbers. Not like dancing on the dance floor – this is choreography – multiple steps and moves – positions on the stage. I would have been lost after the first ten steps (nevermind the out of breath syndrome just to keep up).

It was so good, that probably next year, I’ll be looking for tickets just so I can see all those people exercising their right to expend energy. My congratulations to all those I knew who were in the show, and thanks for showing me that a dance studio is more than pirouettes and tutus. You guys were fantastic. Thanks for the invite, and thanks for giving me a new perspective on dance studios.